your servants again touch and profane the hallowed remains of her, whom I have loved more than any thing on earth; but let me bear them hence to the sepulchre of her fathers; for she was noble as she was good.”
Tertullus was manifestly irritated, as he replied: “Madam, whoever you may be, your request cannot be granted. Catulus, see that the body be cast, as usual, into the river, or burnt.”
“I entreat you, sir,” the lady earnestly insisted, “by every claim which female virtue has upon you, by any tear which a mother has shed over you, by every soothing word which a sister has ever spoken to you, in illness or sorrow; by every ministration of their gentle hands, I implore you to grant my humble prayer. And if, when you return home this evening, you will be met at the threshold by daughters, who will kiss your hand, though stained with the blood of one, whom you may feel proud if they resemble, be able to say to them, at least, that this slightest tribute to the maidenly delicacy which they prize has not been refused.”
Such common sympathy was manifested that Tertullus, anxious to check it, asked her sharply:
“Pray, are you, too, a Christian?”
She hesitated for one instant, then replied, “No, sir, I am not; but I own that if anything could make me one, it would be what I have seen this day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that to preserve the religion of the empire such beings as she whom you have slain” (her tears interrupted her for a moment) “should have to die; while monsters who disgrace the shape and name of man should have to live and flourish. Oh, sir, you know not what you have blotted out from earth this day! She was the purest, sweetest, holiest thing I ever knew upon it, the very flower of womanhood, though yet a child. And she might have lived yet, had she not scorned the proffered hand of a vile adventurer, who pursued her with his loathsome offers into the seclusion of her villa, into the sanctuary of her home, and even into the last retreat of her dungeon. For this she died, that she would not endow with her wealth, and ennoble by her alliance, that Asiatic spy.”